The Azerbaijani media reports claiming Armenia’s complicity in the Muslim pogroms in the Fergana Valley and the Kyrgyz province of Turkmenistan are a blatant attempt to deteriorate the country’s relations with the Middle East, says an Armenian historian.
“It is common knowledge that the Azerbaijani media have been recently pursuing a targeted policy of deteriorating our relations with the Kazakhs and the other nations in the Middle East. Very few in our society know about Urkun, which is translated as revolt, upheaval or the Kyrgyz genocide so to say. That’s a false thesis,” Gevorg Melkonyan, the director of the analytical center Arevelk (East), told our correspondent, referring to the July 4, 1916 big anti-mobilization rebellion in Kyrgyzstan (which was then part of the Russian Empire).
The historian noted that the period saw also rebellions and a civil war, which the Turkish and German emissaries unleashed later in an effort to undermine Russia. “The civil fighting and rebellion in the province of Turkmenistan eventually ended in 1917, claiming tens and thousands of human lives. And the Turkish efforts today are an attempt to misrepresent it as a genocide against the Kyrgyz people, which isn’t true. On the other hand, the Turks are attempting to react to Russia’s stance on the Armenian Genocide,” Melkonyan said.
He noted that Kyrgyzstan’s government has created a special commission this year to mark the centennial of the events which the country does not recognize as a genocide (apart from several politicians facing the Turkish influence).
“I don’t think the Turkish-Azerbaijani attempts to set the Middle East nations against us will succeed, as that isn’t in those peoples’ interest. So their willful interpretation of history is an untimely attempt. Most of the Kyrgyz people, for example, consider the 1916 events a civil war and do not share the Turks’ approaches. So we must be very attentive and react rapidly to prevent the Turkish-Azerbaijani attempts to deteriorate our relations with the peoples in the Middle East,” he added.